McLouth blasts two of Pirates' six homers vs. Rockies

Pirates 11, Rockies 2

DENVER (AP) -- The Pittsburgh Pirates kept pounding balls out of the park, and knocked the Colorado Rockies further back in the National League wild-card race.

Nate McLouth hit a pair of home runs, two of a season-high six hit by the Pirates, and Pittsburgh pounded out 17 hits during an 11-2 rout of the Rockies.

"It's always going to sting to lose games like this," said Colorado manager Clint Hurdle, whose team fell 3 1/2 games behind San Diego in the wild card. "Right now we can't look behind. We have to look ahead."

Jack Wilson, Xavier Nady, Jason Bay and Freddy Sanchez also homered for the Pirates, who had hit 112 home runs as a team coming into Wednesday's game. It was McLouth's first multihomer game and the third time he has had three hits in a game.

"McLouth continues to swing the bat," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "He had great at-bats all night long."

Pittsburgh starter Tom Gorzelanny (12-7) went six innings, surrendering one earned run and striking out five to get his third win in his last four starts.

Three of the Pirates' home runs led off an inning -- Nady in the third, McLouth in the fourth and Bay in the fifth.

"The way we've been swinging the bats all month, we feed off what the other guys are doing," McLouth said. "We've been getting good pitches to hit and we haven't been missing."

Sanchez had four hits for the fourth time this season, and Jose Bautista had three hits for Pittsburgh, which won for the fourth time in the last five games.

"Tonight we might have taken it a notch above where we've been in the month of August," Tracy said. "A lot of offense in a lot of different places."

The Pirates scored twice in the first and four times in the second, three on Wilson's seventh homer of the season. One batter later, McLouth hit the first of his two homers to make it 6-0. The Pirates scored at least one run in each of the first six innings.

Colorado starter Josh Fogg (7-9) struggled from the outset, giving up eight hits to the first 12 batters he faced. He tied a season high with eight earned runs allowed and left after giving up McLouth's leadoff homer in the fourth, his 10th of the year.

"I threw the ball down the middle way too much," Fogg said. "The ball came out of my hand and ended up in the middle of the plate. When you do that 75 percent of the time it will be a bad night."

Reliever Ramon Ortiz gave up a solo homer to Bay and a two-run homer to Sanchez in the sixth.

The Rockies scored their only runs in the fourth. Troy Tulowitzki doubled and scored on Ryan Spilborghs' single, Geronimo Gil was safe on an error, and Ortiz drove in Spilborghs to make it 8-2.

Colorado threatened again in the fifth when the first two batters singled but failed to score.

Game notes
The Pirates' team record for home runs in a game is seven, accomplished three times. The last time they did it was Aug. 20, 2003, in St. Louis. ... Matt Holliday extended his hitting streak to 12 games. ... The Pirates' previous season high for home runs was five against Cincinnati on Aug. 4. ... Pittsburgh's 17 hits were three shy of the season high, set Aug. 1 at St. Louis. ... The Pirates homered in five straight innings, the first time they've done that since divisional play began in 1969.